title: The effects of the formation of Stone-Wales defects on the electronic and magnetic properties of silicon carbide nanoribbons: a first-principles investigation.
abstract: Detailed first-principles density functional theory (DFT) computations were performed to investigate the geometries, the electronic, and the magnetic properties of both armchair-edged silicon carbide nanoribbons (aSiCNRs) and zigzag-edged silicon carbide nanoribbons (zSiCNRs) with Stone-Wales (SW) defects. SW defects in the center of aSiCNRs can remarkably reduce their band gaps, irrespective of the orientation of the defect, whereas zSiCNRs with SW defects in the center or at the edges exhibit degenerate energies of their ferromagnetic (FM) and antiferromagnetic (AFM) states, in which metallic and half-metallic behavior can be observed, respectively; half-metallic behavior can even be observed in both the FM and AFM states simultaneously. Further, it was shown that the formation energies of the SW defects in SiCNRs are orientation dependent, and the formation of edge defects is always favored over the formation of interior defects in zSiCNRs. The possible existence of SW defects in SiCNRs was further validated through exploring the kinetic process of their formation. These findings can be anticipated to provide valuable information in promoting the potential applications of SiC-based nanomaterials in multifunctional and spintronic nanodevices.
authors.affiliation: The State Key Laboratory of Theoretical and Computational Chemistry, Institute of Theoretical Chemistry, Jilin University, Changchun 130023, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Jia
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Guan
authors.forename: Guangtao
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.forename: Xiuling
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Ding
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Zhiming
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.forename: Xuri
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Chiachung
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Sun
keywords: Stone-Wales defects; band structures; density functional calculations; nanostructures; silicon carbide